Transfers

[OR-See-Nee]

I'm sincere in this question. Why is it apparently easier for soccer players to transfer to SMU than football players? According to this article, linked to the PF home page, it looks like we have some very talented kids here who transferred, including a JC player.

Do soccer players, on average, have different majors than football players? So more of their hours transfer in?

http://publications.socceramerica.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=24220&Nid=35845&p=468355

SMU. The Mustangs played four transfers in Saturday's 1-0 win over Memphis, the Mustangs' seventh straight win. Former U-17 Adrian Chevannes came to SMU in 2004 after one season at Clemson, sat out the 2005 season but has emerged as a big force the last two seasons. Scott Geppert and Ben Shuleva arrived from Brown and St. John's, respectively, last season, though Geppert's campaign was cut short because of a season-ending knee injury in early October. He has returned to score four goals this fall. Gabriel Arredondo is in his first season with the Mustangs after starring at Texas JC power Tyler Junior College.

[MrMustang1965]

Congrats to the soccer team on being ranked #1 in the nation!

[Hoop Fan]

soccer players are often the product of disciplined homes and driving parents. the sport starts at a young age. It is dominated by club teams, which tend to be wealthy, structured enviroments which breed the kind of kid that excel in school and everything. Also, most soccer players are chasing the dream of college scholarships, not the pros where there has historically been little money. that right there aligns the goals of soccer parents (they are nuts for the most part) with academic prowess. Soccer is really a country club sport in a lot of ways which makes smu a desirable destination to begin with.

[Mexmustang]

Not sure I buy all that...but our transfers seem to have come from some pretty good schools.

[Stallion]

Look at the profile of the Football Team-compare it to the profile of the Soccer Team. Then do some research on the average academic performance and/or SAT scores of each substantial group in the profile. I did this analysis once and posted it. That investigation will reveal why Football and Basketball are different from Soccer and the Country Club sports.

[MustangPride]

Hey Stallion, if you saved your research please repost would love to see the results....if not no biggie.

[Hoop Fan]

Not sure I buy all that...but our transfers seem to have come from some pretty good schools.

just to preface my opinion, both my kids showed some early ability and got on the track of the Dallas Texas club soccer teams, which we did only briefly, ie a season or two. I can tell you there is some insane stuff going on at a young age in soccer from workout regimens to discipline. Its a culture that is altogether different from youth football and bball.

[SMUer]

soccer players are often the product of disciplined homes and driving parents. the sport starts at a young age. It is dominated by club teams, which tend to be wealthy, structured enviroments which breed the kind of kid that excel in school and everything. Also, most soccer players are chasing the dream of college scholarships, not the pros where there has historically been little money. that right there aligns the goals of soccer parents (they are nuts for the most part) with academic prowess. Soccer is really a country club sport in a lot of ways which makes smu a desirable destination to begin with.

Because of Title IX there practically are no scholarships for men's programs. The best offer around 5 full but most offer none or only partial scholarships. Also, club soccer can be pretty demanding but when I played I can remember a LOT of minorities/kids who where VERY poor who were basically sponsored to participate in club teams. Sure, you mostly get the wealthy kids but I'd say a solid 1/3 are from families below middle class. A lot of great recruits come from inner city neighborhoods/foreign countries.

[SMUer]

And I object to the "country club" label. Soccer as a sport is probably the cheapest sport to play...all you need to is to roll up some rags. Travel soccer IS expensive but most teams sponsor kids from all walks of life to play for them. Soccer is so important to some communities that the entire community pitches in to field a youth team...and I'm not talking about in Asia...right here in the US...Texas in fact. The best soccer players (foreign and domestic) are often inner city/ poor kids. That goes for the US program and for teams like Brazil.

[Mexmustang]

Some of your points I agree with, just not all. Experienced the same with my daughter that played on the highest levels, but couldn't make the HP team, which was selected by the senior girl members at the time. Her club team later played the HS team and trounced them 9-0. She also never played on the Park Cities Y teams and was called out in junior high, at the school, by the athletic director for not doing so. Oh politics!

[Hoop Fan]

soccer players are often the product of disciplined homes and driving parents. the sport starts at a young age. It is dominated by club teams, which tend to be wealthy, structured enviroments which breed the kind of kid that excel in school and everything. Also, most soccer players are chasing the dream of college scholarships, not the pros where there has historically been little money. that right there aligns the goals of soccer parents (they are nuts for the most part) with academic prowess. Soccer is really a country club sport in a lot of ways which makes smu a desirable destination to begin with.

Because of Title IX there practically are no scholarships for men's programs. The best offer around 5 full but most offer none or only partial scholarships. Also, club soccer can be pretty demanding but when I played I can remember a LOT of minorities/kids who where VERY poor who were basically sponsored to participate in club teams. Sure, you mostly get the wealthy kids but I'd say a solid 1/3 are from families below middle class. A lot of great recruits come from inner city neighborhoods/foreign countries.

maybe, but thats not my point. The program/club wealth (not always individual famility wealth) drives the atmosphere, the discipline and the structure. As long as there are 5 scholarships ( or 7 or 10) and glory that goes with it, people will chase it.

[SMUer]

I played on a state champion team in Houston and my family would literally drive down into the 5th ward every away game and pick up a couple of kids and take them to the game. Travel teams have high fees because they travel but they also have high fees because part of that money goes to help suppliment guys on the team who can't afford soccer. Many soccer players are black/excellent athletes (not that there is a necessary correlation) who would be/are just as good at playing football. Looking at the soccer team and what majors they choose isn't totally stupid. Alot of them live in the same neighborhood/same situation as the kids we are trying to recruit.

[SMUer]

soccer players are often the product of disciplined homes and driving parents. the sport starts at a young age. It is dominated by club teams, which tend to be wealthy, structured enviroments which breed the kind of kid that excel in school and everything. Also, most soccer players are chasing the dream of college scholarships, not the pros where there has historically been little money. that right there aligns the goals of soccer parents (they are nuts for the most part) with academic prowess. Soccer is really a country club sport in a lot of ways which makes smu a desirable destination to begin with.

Because of Title IX there practically are no scholarships for men's programs. The best offer around 5 full but most offer none or only partial scholarships. Also, club soccer can be pretty demanding but when I played I can remember a LOT of minorities/kids who where VERY poor who were basically sponsored to participate in club teams. Sure, you mostly get the wealthy kids but I'd say a solid 1/3 are from families below middle class. A lot of great recruits come from inner city neighborhoods/foreign countries.

maybe, but thats not my point. The program/club wealth (not always individual famility wealth) drives the atmosphere, the discipline and the structure. As long as there are 5 scholarships ( or 7 or 10) and glory that goes with it, people will chase it.

My point is that unless you are a Parade All-American...you pretty much realize as a player that you aren't getting that full ride scholarship. Like I said, most kids get a $5K thank-you-for-playing scholarship.

[Hoop Fan]

you guys are actually reinforcing my point, not refuting it but anyway. If the BCS schools gave a crap about soccer or even fielded teams for the most part, i assure you the SMU mens team would suffer in profile. For an example, which was driven by the Title IX you refer to, just look at what happened to SMU's womens program once UT and A&M decided to compete in womens soccer. Our womens program is a shadow of its former self.

[SMUer]

Hoop Fan, your point was that soccer is a "country club" sport whose structure reinforces the pursuit of scholarships and academic prowess. My point is that there is a healthy chunk of kids where that is not true, and these are athletes who are also playing football or living right next door and in the same neighborhoods as some of the kids we are trying to recruit for football. I'm just trying to point out that it isn't completely asinine to look at soccer programs for a comparison of who they get and why they get transfers. Most don't do it for cushy money. As far as Title IX goes, I never saw SMU W Soccer in all its supremacy so maybe it is a shadow of its former self, but all it did at SMU was force SMU to allocate the same funding we spend for football for women's athletics. If that's the $$ you say soccer players are after, then I'd agree with you in that the women's soccer team (and its [guess] 15 full scholarships) wouldn't be the best comparision for SMU football. The men can get transfer players without offering too much money so I think looking at their majors would be at least interesting.